Robert Howard - Tigers Of The Sea

Cormac wheeled and dodged the whistling blade just in time. Then his foot slipped in a patch of beach-slime and he fell sprawling. Thorleif hove up his sword for a final blow-but as he swung it down the blade crashed on an upraised shield and suddenly he was gazing into the blazing eyes of Wulfhere the Skull-splitter.

"Smite again!" roared the Danish chieftain. "Aye, try your steel against another than wounded warriors and helpless women, spawn of Helheim!"

Cormac lurched to his feet and raced to the aid of Marcus; a Norse warrior surged to stop him, but Cormac was beneath the sweep of the man's axe like a cat and his broken sword ripped into his bull-throat.

Thorleif Hordi's son roared with rage and struck with all his might, and his great thick-bladed sword crashed ringingly against the rim of Wulfhere's horned helmet and sent sparks flying. The Danish chief reeled back, half-dazed, and Thorleif rushed in for the kill; but Wulfhere, rallying, roared and swung his axe with all his strength. The axe-blade dipped beneath Thorleif's shield and crunched in through steel mail and into flesh. Thorleif, maddened, lashed back with a blow that clove Wulfhere's shield asunder-but the Dane, bellowing like a wounded bear, gave back a blow of his axe that shore through the Norseman's helmet and split his skull to the jawbone, and Thorleif crashed to the earth like a felled tree.

The battle raged like a maelstrom of steel as the Danes from the long ship rushed to battle with the Norse warriors, who in turn had charged from their position by the stockade-wall. Cormac raced to the side of Marcus, who with the help of Donal was protecting the princess Helen.

"Back to the ship!" yelled Cormac. "Leave the treasure and forget your blood-feuds! Protect the princess!"

The Danes paused in their retreat to draw bow to ear, and at least a score of the charging Norsemen went down before a storm of arrows, somewhat evening the odds-but the rest came on. Halfgar and his Jutes had retreated slightly, but now with their Norse allies at their backs returned to the offense with wild war-cries.

The rushing factions crashed together in a storm of ringing steel; flashing blades ripped through mail and flesh, bones snapped under the impact of mighty blows, and in a moment the beach-stones were slippery with blood while Dane strove against Jute and Norseman in a desperate fury that neither gave nor asked for quarter. Halfgar slew a Dane with a mighty stroke of his axe, then leaped for Donal who was warding the frightened princess. Donal was a competent swordsman but he could not stand before the berserker fury of the Jute's charge; the force of Halfgar's blow against the buckler he threw up barely in time drove him to his knees. Then the Juttish chief hove up his axe for a killing blow.

Cormac, his sword and shield useless, tensed to charge Halfgar bare-handed-yet knew with a pang of despair that he was too far away to avert the blow that would slay Donal. Then with a roar of rage a hurtling form crashed into the Jute and the two went down together, threshing and snarling. It was Marcus, unarmed, yet in the grip of a berserker-rage as terrible as any Viking's.

Cormac ducked a singing sword-blade, leaped under his attacker's guard and drove his dagger against the warrior's scale-mail with all his strength. The blade snapped-but not before it had ripped through the mail and buried itself deep in the Viking's heart.

Snatching up the fallen warrior's sword and shield, Cormac leaped to where Marcus and Halfgar were battling. The young Briton was having the worst of it; his wounds had weakened him, and his strength was not equal to his fury. Even as Cormac sprang forward Halfgar broke the furious grip of his opponent and smashed the front of his shield into the youth's face; then, even as he shifted his axe to slay the stunned Marcus, the Jute saw a glitter of bright crimson at his feet. It was the gem that had adorned the princess Helen, its slender chain now broken, torn from Marcus during the fight. Halfgar stooped quickly and snatched it up, hastily looping the chain round his axe-belt. That instant of avarice was all Cormac needed to close the gap and save Marcus from the stroke of a butcher's axe; when the Jute looked up the Gael was already upon him like a whirlwind of fury. He hove up his axe in an instinctive attempt to ward off Cormac's furious stroke, but the sword-blade bit through the handle, sending the axe-head flying, and crashed to fragments on his iron helm. The good metal saved Halfgar's skull but the force of Cormac's blow sent the Jute crashing senseless to the beach.

"Fall back to the ship," yelled Cormac. "Aid here for the prince Marcus!"

Donal rushed to Cormac's aid, and the princess Helen with him, her face white and tearful but strong with a concern that overrode her fear. Ignoring Cormac's bewildered cursings, she helped the minstrel lift the stunned Marcus and bear him away.

The Jutes and Norsemen, having seen both their chieftains fall, had momentarily slackened in their battle-fury; but now, seeing the Danes withdrawing rapidly toward their ship with the hostage British noblewoman in their midst, they surged back to the fight with renewed frenzy. And then, as if in answer to a prearranged signal, the war-cries of a mighty host came roaring from the far end of the beach, beyond when the Raven lay with her prow on the sand-and from the forest burst a horde of charging Norsemen that outnumbered both the contesting groups put together.

"The trap's sprung!" yelled Cormac, raging. "To the ship!"

"Wotan!" Wulfhere scattered a Norseman's brains with a mighty stroke of his axe. "Let your blades drink blood, sons of Dane-mark!"

But even as the retreating Danes reached the prow of their beached ship, Cormac saw it was too late. They had barely time to group themselves into a knot about the bow, with shields overlapping and blades bristling from their ranks like steel quills, when Thorleif's forces smote from both sides like giant ocean waves dashing in fury against a great rock. The Danes raged like giants at Ragnarok in their battlefury, dealing death to two for every one of their own that was slain, yet even as Cormac raged and slew with the best of them he knew that the odds were too great. They were outnumbered three to one and the newcomers to the battle were fresh. The Danes could not practice their superior archery at these close quarters, nor could they scramble up the sides of their long ship…

Suddenly a howl of fury seemed to shake the skies-a scream of war-fury that welled up from a thousand throats-and then a storm of arrows from all sides darkened the already murky skies. Wooden shafts rattled down like rain and splintered against the scaled corselets of Dane, Jute and Norseman alike. Cormac saw one of Wulfhere's men reel, his neck transfixed by a dark, flint-tipped arrow; a blond Norse warrior staggered and fell with a similar arrow jutting from his right eye-socket. Most of the shafts that found a mark broke and splintered harmlessly against the bucklers and mail of the Vikings, but all too many out of those hurtling thousands thudded to rest in living flesh.

The Norsemen and Jutes whirled to face this new foe, and Cormac, straining to see above the heads of his enemies, saw the beach in both directions a-swarm with dark, running figures-Picts! Now the arrow-storm ceased and the dark runners, with howls of blood-mad battle frenzy, hurled themselves on the confused outer ranks of the Norsemen.

"Into the ship!" yelled Cormac as the battle-press slackened. "Once there we can hold off both Pict and Norseman with arrow-storm if need be."

The Danes surged over the sides of their long ship, unhindered by the Norsemen who had turned to meet the savage charge of the Picts. A second rain of arrows from the charging Picts swept the deck as the warriors clambered aboard. Donal and Cormac, who had shielded Helen with their bucklers at some risk to themselves, hurried the girl to the hold despite her protests over the safety of Marcus. Wulfhere himself helped lift the wounded prince to the deck and bear him to safety.